When I think back on this period, I’m not proud of myself. Even though the adult me knows that the child me was battling just to survive, I wince at how passive I had become. I was turning more and more to Xanax and other drugs, which were prescribed by doctors Maxwell sent me to. Sometimes, when I was really struggling, I took as many as eight Xanax a day.
Epstein and Maxwell began lending me out to their friends. The first time, he made it sound as if he were launching me on an exciting new phase of my “massage training”. My new “clients”, as Epstein described them, were a man and his pregnant wife. Both needed massages, Epstein said. They were staying at The Breakers, an exclusive Palm Beach hotel not far from El Brillo Way, and Epstein had specific instructions for how I was to treat them. “Make her comfortable. But save most of your energy for him.” When Epstein said this, I looked up. Did he mean what I thought he meant? “Give him whatever he wants,” Epstein confirmed. “Just like you do for me.”
That night I took a taxi to The Breakers. The man – I’ll call him Billionaire Number One – and his wife were staying in an apartment in the residential section of the vast property. When I arrived, they showed me to the master bedroom, where I would work on the woman first. As a joke, Maxwell had warned me that I could induce premature labor if I massaged the woman’s ankles “in the wrong way”. I knew nothing about prenatal massage, but I did my best, avoiding her ankles altogether. After about 45 minutes, the woman said she was going to go to sleep.
The apartment was dark, and I had to tiptoe around a bit before I found Billionaire Number One in a sitting-room area, taking off his clothes. I hoped against hope that a massage was all this stranger was expecting. I was kneading his muscles when he looked up, groaned, and asked me, “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable working in the nude?” I was disappointed, but not surprised. We had sex on the floor, and afterward, he tipped me $100. As I left that night, I felt that familiar scooped-out, empty feeling.
The second person I was lent out to was a psychology professor whose research Epstein was helping to fund. He was a quirky little man with a balding pate of white hair, and, from his nervous affect, it seemed he wasn’t used to being with women. The man never asked directly for sex, but Epstein had made clear that was what he expected. “Keep him happy, like you did with your first client,” Epstein had said. So when the professor asked at one point for “one of your famous massages that Jeffrey has told me so much about”, I complied. We only had sex once, though. The next night, the man told me he wanted to watch movies instead. I was glad, but I remember feeling worried that I’d somehow disappointed the professor in a way that he’d share with Epstein.
Maxwell told me: ‘You did well. The prince had fun.’ Epstein would give me $15,000 for servicing the man the tabloids called ‘Randy Andy’
The psychologist was only the first of many academics from prestigious universities who I was forced to service sexually. I didn’t know it then, but Epstein had spent years campaigning to keep company with the world’s biggest thinkers. Epstein had convinced himself that he – a college dropout – was on the same level as degree-holding innovators and theoreticians, and because he funded many of their research projects and flew them around on his jets, he was largely welcomed into their fold.
Scientists weren’t the only people Epstein used his vast resources to win access to – which is how I came to be trafficked to a multitude of powerful men. Among them were a gubernatorial candidate who was soon to win election in a western state and a former US senator. Since Epstein usually neglected to introduce me to these men by name, I would only learn who some of them were years later, when I studied photographs of Epstein’s associates and recognised their faces.
On 10 March 2001 we were in London, staying at Maxwell’s pied-à-terre – a white mews house a short walk from Hyde Park. Maxwell woke me up that morning by announcing in a singsongy voice: “Get out of bed, sleepyhead!” It was going to be a special day, she said. Just like Cinderella, I was going to meet a handsome prince! Her old friend Prince Andrew would be dining with us that night, she said, and we had lots to do to get me ready.
Maxwell and I spent most of that day shopping. She bought me an expensive purse from Burberry and three different outfits. When we got back to her house, I laid them out on the bed. There were two sexy, sophisticated dresses she’d picked out and a third option that I’d lobbied for: a pink V-necked, sleeveless mini-T-shirt and a sparkly, multicolored pair of jeans embroidered with a pattern of interlocking horses. After I showered and dried my hair, I put on the jeans and top, which left a strip of my stomach exposed. Maxwell wasn’t thrilled, but like most teenage girls then, I idolised Britney Spear
